Gerry Tivers, Stage Manager

It is the stage manager’s job to interpret the director’s requirements for everything to do with the build and operation of the stage environment – principally, the set, the sound and the lighting. This starts off with a brief, rough plan. Agreement is reached on the positioning and type of doors and windows. In this case a large double door was specified which, when open reveals a hallway through which the actors enter and leave. There are two other doors. A more detailed plan is then drawn up and the set is built. It was found that the hallway was not sufficiently wide to allow Helene, the maid, to bring in the Christmas tree and the back wall of the room had to be moved forward. That resulted in the side walls being shorter and so some re-positioning of the doors and the window had to be done.

The colour scheme was agreed with the director and the set built and painted. All members of the club lent a hand with woodwork and painting, according to their skills. Props were obtained, furniture brought in from the store or acquired and any necessary upholstery carried out, on the chaise longue for instance. A wreath was made to go over the door and the Christmas tree was dressed. Naked flames and real candles could not be used for the tree and a substitute was

needed. Obviously it would not do for them all to come on at once so mains powered lights were no use. Fortunately battery operated ‘candles’ were found and with a slight modification they were so convincing that one member of the audience remarked during the interval that she was worried by the fire hazard. The illusion was helped by the taper which was ‘lit’ from the stove. It was home made from a tube with a bright orange LED glued in the top with a candle effect cover and a battery inside. Quite a lot of rehearsal was needed to get candles and taper settings right so that Nora could light them with a slight twist that the audience would not notice. The final touch was to replace the candles with short ones to look as though they had burned down for Act 3. To get a real feel for a lighted stove, two flicker lights plus a solid red light were used.

For A Doll’s House two different moods of lighting were wanted, a feeling of daylight emanating from the window and a feeling of night time and artificial light. The daylight has a colder colour and as dusk approaches grows dimmer. The artificial light could have been gas or electricity and there was quite a lot of discussion about this. In the end, it is rather ambiguous but closer to gas than electric. It had been intended to use flicker bulbs that mimic gas light but the new dimmer equipment being used was not really compatible and they switched rather than dimmed. As each lamp is ‘lit’ the stage lighting is increased in sympathy.

The first thing was to decide where the lamps are going to be positioned. The theatre is fairly limited for placing lamps but different sorts, colours and intensities can be used. After positioning the lamps, the timing of the lighting changes all had to be worked out and programmed into the ‘desk’. As a result, during the show, all that was necessary was to press a button at each cue to initiate each setting. The time to set all this up is very much greater than the time to operate it. It needs to be done when the auditorium is dark – which means that rehearsals cannot be running – so Gerry came over during the day and set it up over several sessions on his own with the lighting board on his knee. There is a monitor from which the stage can be watched during the performance but it is not adequate for assessing the effect for an audience. That must be done from the auditorium.

East Lane now has some LED lamps that have the great advantage that one lamp can provide a great range of different colours by changing the combination and intensities of the red, green and blue component LEDs. They have been used to great effect in previous shows but Gerry decided to use conventional tungsten lamps for A Doll’s House because he feels that LEDS do not have the subtlety required and the colours are very saturated so they look somewhat